Today was another one of those awesome, awesome days… It
started out with a dip in the Zebedee Springs, a permanent thermal spring
delivering a constant flow of water at 28-32 degrees Celsius. The spring flows out of the rocks then flows
down through a series of little pools till it ends in a larger pool at the
base. Unfortunately, the tourists come
from far and wide to this place and when we turned up there was not one, but
two tour buses sitting out the front. Once
in at the springs space was at a premium… there were people everywhere…
Thankfully, someone gave us the tip that the water is hotter the higher up the
flow you go. It was a bit of a scramble
over some rocks to get to the higher pools which acted as a good buffer for
keeping the oldies on the tour bus at the lower levels. By the time we worked our way down the pools
to the base both tour buses had left so we had a bit of room to move.
This is the pool at the base of the flow of
water. It was a stunning location. You are inside a gorge surrounded by palm
trees and pandanas sitting in a series of rock pools complete with waterfalls. It was a little tropical paradise.
These are a couple of the pools higher up
From Zebedee Springs we headed to El Questro gorge. This one unexpectedly blew us away. It has made it to number two on our ‘Top 5 on the Gibb’ list… It was a really nice half hour walk in a fern lined gorge along a crystal clear stream to reach Halfway Pool. Most of the walking was over river bed stones alongside or criss-crossing the stream.
Then you hit Halfway Pool. This is where 95% of people stop and have a swim then turn around and walk back out… not the BK family!
The walk continues along the gorge but first you must
negotiate that giant boulder at the end of the pool. There is absolutely no other way around… you’ve
got to swim/wade to the boulder then find a way to climb up on top. It was a fair effort for someone like me to
get up there. Our two mountain goat kids
did it easy enough and of course it was nothing at all for Dave and his long
legs to get up there… On the other side the boots went back on for us to hike
another full hour to reach a small off-shoot gorge. In that hour we traversed the usual river bed
rocks, then the rocks turned into boulders so it was more climbing and
scrambling than walking.
We had to scramble up the left side of this waterfall
Fun along the way…
I had trouble getting my fat bum through this bit…
After a solid hours’ work this was our reward… an absolutely stunning sight. The gorge walls converged to a point where a waterfall flowed down into a plunge pool. Unfortunately, these kind of places are so hard to take a photo that does it justice…
To add to our excitement, as we turned up Megan spotted a
black snake coming out of the shallow water.
The snake had its mouth wrapped
around a small frog who was trying to fight his way back out… For those of you who know me well, know my
fear of frogs… so, what are the chances of me jumping into an icy pool where
there are snakes, frogs and frog-eating snakes?? ABSOLUTELY ZERO CHANCE… even
Megan was too spooked to go in. Of
course, nothing would stop the boys…
Back at the large boulder at Halfway Pool. It is much easier getting past coming the other way… you simply jump off the rock into the pool…
Five and a half hours later we made it out of El Questro
Gorge…
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